No one quite like you
by Faithful Wheezy
Summary: Neville and Luna meet at the Yule Ball, and they can't honestly say they've met anyone quite like each other. Complete.
1. Innocent vampire dances

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling created them, I messed with them.

* * *

_Innocent Vampire Dances_

Neville was very surprised when he asked Ginny out to the Yule Ball. Mere moments after he did it, he realized that he was simply desperate to go to the Ball with a partner, instead of toughing it out alone like Crabbe and Goyle, after Hermione had turned him down.

So, at the Yule Ball, he didn't mind much when a tall, dark boy by the name of Michael Corner asked if he could cut in while he was dancing with Ginny.

"Yeah, sure," he mumbled, and he moved aside to let Michael dance with Ginny.

He walked around the Great Hall, managing not to trip over strewn high heels or his own feet, and noticed a rather pretty, light blonde girl in silver dress robes standing by the punch bowl, looking slightly interested at the dancers, but bored at the same time.

She looked alone, so Neville decided to approach her.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Neville."

The girl looked at him, looking surprised. Her large grey eyes scanned Neville from his shiny black shoes to his lightly ragged maroon dress robes. "Luna," she said, dreamily.

"Well, er, are you alone?" he said awkwardly.

"Technically yes," she said in her dazed voice, "but my partner is off dancing with somebody else."

"Mine too," Neville mumbled.

There was an awkward silence.

"Er, do you wanna dance?" Neville said.

Luna looked at him in surprise and looked at him for a moment. "Sure," she said. "But you have to know, dancing was created by a vampire, so he could get close to the victim and suck his or her blood without drawing attention. The dance was called the Suckbloodika, and it looked somewhat close to what everyone else is doing."

Neville stared at Luna. "Right," he said, feeling more gullible than he had ever felt in his life.

Luna peered at Neville. "You're not a vampire are you?"

Neville coughed. "I hope not," he said.

Luna held out her hands. "So shall we start the Suckbloodika—er, without the sucking blood?"

"Sure," said Neville, concentrating on trying not to trip over his own feet.

The dance was fairly easy, even for Neville. _Step, step, clomp, step-clomp-clomp-step. Hug, step, jump, exchange positions, step, clomp, step, scream the bands' name happily, clap, clap, clap,_ Neville thought to himself.

Luna seemed very comfortable with dancing it. "I practice this dance with a family friend," she said. "He's quite spectacular at dancing it. I suspect he must have some vampire blood in him. Half-vampires are called Humpmires, and his name was Humpsworth. Not quite a coincidence, I think."

"So you think he's a Humpire?" asked Neville, a-stepping and a-clomping.

"Yes," said Luna, a-jumping and a-clapping.

"You're a good dancer," said Neville, after a few minutes of dancing.

"Thanks," said Luna, dreamily. "Merely out of a lot of practicing. You are rather good yourself, considering I notice you trip all the time and you don't dance a lot."

"Thanks?" Neville replied. He had never met anyone quite like her. "I'm thirsty," he said, managing to maneuver his feet out of a potentially tripping position. "I'm going to get punch. Would you like some?"

Luna neatly stopped dancing and shook her head. "No, thank you, I'm sticking to water. Punch, back in the old days was made out of colored Kwanzakaria bile, and this Yule Ball is designed to delve into the olden days of Merlin's third son's fifteenth generation. The punch might be Kwanzakaria bile, so I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"What's a Kwanzaka—" Neville shook his head. "Well, I'll get you some water, then."

"All right," said Luna, following Neville into the crowd.

"I've never seen you around before," Neville said conversationally, over the singing and the talking.

"Well, I'm in 3rd year," said Luna, in her slow voice. "I wanted to see if the Yule Ball was really like the one back in Merlin's third son's fifteenth generation, so I managed to get a 4th year to ask me to the Ball."

"Oh," said Neville, handing her a glass of water. "So is this like the one back in Merlin's third son's fifteenth generation?"

"I hope not," said Luna innocently. "If it was, you'd be over double by now, considering you drank two cups of 'punch'."

Neville nodded. "Right. The Kwanzakaria bile," he said. "I don't think Dumbledore would—"

"It's not Dumbledore's problem to organize what food goes in balls!" Said Luna, her grey eyes widening. "It's the jobs of the Planaries."

"Planaries?" Neville asked before he could stop himself.

"Right," said Luna seriously. "Planaries. Giant purple canaries that plan for great events and such. Quite, quite rare."

Neville nodded, not sure if he should believe her or not, and compromised by taking a large gulp of punch and dribbling half of it down his chin.

Luna watched him drink his punch. "Is that how we're supposed to drink here at the Ball?" she asked. "Should I drink sloppily like that too?"

"Er, no," said Neville, spluttering, and hastily wiping punch off of his chin.

At that moment, a lively number had started, and couples sprang off their chairs, as it was a really good tune.

"Another dance?" asked Neville, praying he wouldn't trip.

"Sure," said Luna. "This looks like a fairly normal and slightly boring dance to me."

_**finite**_


	2. Smiles don't hurt once in a while

_Smiles don't hurt once in a while  
_

Neville walked back to the Common Room happily after escorting an extremely talkative Luna to the main Ravenclaw Corridor, whose partner seemed to abandon her for a rather more serious and prettier Beauxbatons girl. For once, here was a girl who didn't really judge him for his clumsiness or lack of ability to have a good conversation.

Also, Luna wasn't that bad. She was interesting to talk to, although you couldn't be certain if she was ever being serious or not.

Soon after arriving in the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitories, he found himself dancing around in his shiny new dress shoes, grinning like a madman. Luckily, the only person who saw him was Harry, who simply shrugged like he couldn't care less, and went off to change. By the time he was finished, other fourth-year boys piled into the room, and Neville had stopped dancing.

-x-

"Neville? Why are you smiling?"

"Huh?"

It was next morning, and Neville, Seamus, and Dean were sitting at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. Apparently, Neville had still been smiling, and Seamus and Dean were concerned about his personal well being, knowing all-too-well what Neville was capable of.

"You're smiling a lot, Neville." Dean repeated, shaking an oatmeal-filled-spoon at him.

In between dodging nutrition-filled grains and milk, Neville answered, "Grams says it doesn't hurt to smile a lot once in a while."

"Er," started Seamus, "are you sure you're not planning on—"

At that moment, Luna had just walked into the Great Hall, wearing earrings that rather looked like a cross between a miniature Hinky Puff and a flobberworm. After a few seconds, Neville realized that his shaking spoon of cereal was dripping slowly on his robes.

"Oi! Earth to Neville! Are you in there?" Seamus said loudly.

"Wha—" Neville turned around and saw Seamus and Dean looking expectantly at him and the direction he was staring at. "Oh, sorry…"

"What were you staring at, Neville?" asked Dean, struggling to keep his voice innocent.

"Lu—no one," said Neville hastily. All of the guys already teased him about his clumsiness. The last thing he needed was a girl they would tease him about!

"Don't play innocent with us, Longbottom," Dean admonished Neville severely, "we _all_ know who you're staring at."

Neville managed one harmless looking glare before looking back towards where Luna was, however, he found to his dismay that Luna had moved, and in her place was a very greasy, ugly looking Snape.

"Severus Snape. Greasy, slimy, sod-off Snape," Seamus said tonelessly, his face at complete odds with his colorless voice. "I would've never believed it of you, Neville!"

"Yeah, honestly, Neville," said Dean, taking feverish bites of kipper. "Even _Snape's_ way out of your league."

"I wasn't—who're you—not him—wasn't looking at—I'm _not_," Neville blustered unsuccessfully. Dean and Seamus clicked their tongues, looking at Neville sympathetically.

"Give it up, Neville." Dean shook his head. "Or rather, give _him_ up. Too old and wrong gender."

"What the—" Neville stuttered yet again. "I—I don't like Snape," he said helplessly. With a last bewildered shudder, Neville stood up abruptly from his seat and left the Great Hall, not having even touched his cereal, which Seamus instantly claimed.

"Poor bloke," he said, shoveling Muggle Apple Jacks into his mouth. "Gullible."

"Guess he didn't realize we were kidding," Dean added, finishing off a goblet of pumpkin juice. He replaced the goblet back on the table, where it instantly began refilling itself.

After a minute of silence, Seamus looked up from his plate. "Eh, mate, he was stuttering quite a bit. You don't think—"

Dean's eyes seemed to grow wider. "_No,_" he said, in what he obviously thought was a dreaded tone of voice. "Neville can't possibly like Snape. It's—it's—it's against the Hogwarts rules!"

"Forget that—it's against the laws of nature!"

"Ugh," the two boys said, pushing away their heavily-loaded plates, getting up themselves.

-x-

"Luna!" Neville called out, jogging breathlessly over to where Luna was sitting alone, reading what appeared to be a Muggle Chinese take-out menu sideways. Clutching his side, even though he had not even been _jogging_ for a minute, he sat down beside her, wheezing slightly.

Luna looked up, slightly surprised, but not displeased. "Oh, hello Neville," she said cheerfully.

Neville inclined his head in greeting. "I just wanted to say, thanks for being my—er, sort of partner last night at the Yule Ball."

Luna smiled, setting her Chinese menu down. "It was nothing at all, Neville. I rather enjoyed doing the Suckbloodika and the normal, yet quite boring dance with you."

"Er," Neville said uncertainly, not quite sure of what to say.

"Oh, don't worry," Luna said comfortingly, turning her protuberant eyes upon the uncomfortable boy. "I wasn't insulting you. Oh no." Here, she turned the Chinese menu around on the table, studying it intently. "In fact, you dance rather well," she added.

"Thanks," Neville said with a hint of pride that he only used once before. "Well, I'll see you later in Potions."

"Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Double-Potions," Luna confirmed, nodding gravely. "Two intelligent Houses, coming together in an unintelligent, dark, damp dungeon. The same thing happened once in 1947, I believe, when—"

"Oi! Neville! Get a move on!" Ron Weasley called from the opposite end of the Great Hall. "Potions starts in a few minutes."

Neville turned around, bewildered. Ron Weasley, worrying about tardiness?

Ron must have spotted the skeptical look on Neville's face, because he added hastily, "Hermione. She told me that no Gryffindor could be late today." With that, Ron left the Great Hall, muttering something about "animal magnetism", "little messenger-boy" and, "oh well, I can't really stand up to her", and an audible sigh.

"That Ron really seems infatuated with Hermione, doesn't he?" said Luna matter-of-factly.

"Well, er," said Neville, not really wanting to delve into his friend's private life.

"Right. You should go on to Potions. I can bear being late."

**_finite_**


	3. A hell bent potions class

_A Hell-Bent Potions Class_

"Sit. Quickly, neatly, silently. Yes, _now,_ Weasley."

It was Double-Potions with the advanced Third-year Ravenclaws, and even Neville had to admit that it could be worse. They could have been having Potions with the Slytherins, and all of the Gryffindors had arrived to class early, courtesy of Hermione, so Snape had no reason to dock points off of the Gryffindors.

Once he was seated (rather nervously) at his cauldron, Neville took the liberty to look around to the opposite end of the dungeon, to the Ravenclaw side, where he noticed Luna peering at her cauldron warily.

"Yes, now that the Fourth Year Gryffindors and _Advanced _Third Year Ravenclaws are all here," Snape drawled in his silky voice, "we might as well get started. Now—"

He took out his wand and hit the blackboard with it in one, swift stroke. "Essence of Insanity," said the hook-nosed professor. "Who can tell me what this particular potion does?"

As usual, Hermione's hand slapped the air, but Snape chose this particular time to ignore it, and continued to look around the dismal dungeon. Finally, after thirty, agonizing seconds, Luna's shy hand ventured up.

Snape, who was obviously relieved someone who wasn't from Gryffindor decided to try, called on her. "Yes, Lovegood."

Luna's dreamy voice seemed to echo 'round the classroom. "The Essence of Insanity," she said, "was a potion used back in the days before Merlin. It was invented by a wizard by the name of Fubersut, pronounced F_you_-bher-soot, who was considered crazy by his town's terms. One day, he became so tired of being the only 'crazy' wizard around, and he created a potion, probably driven to it by his madness, and disguised it as a cup of tea. The next morning, he offered the 'tea'—" here, Luna did some air quotes, "to a particularly mean and nasty foe who always seemed to pounce on him, not to mention that this foe was a popular person, well loved in the town. An hour later, that wizard started becoming slightly more hysterical and insane by the minute, even more than Fubersut himself, and he was kicked out of the town. Fubersut did his revenge on—"

"Yes, thank you," interrupted Snape, not looking thankful at all. "You are correct, however; the potion was indeed invented by a Swedish wizard by the name of Fubersut. _But_, I asked you what the Essence of Insanity was, not its insane history. No credit awarded to Ravenclaw."

Neville was amazed. Surely Luna's House deserved some credit for the amazing history of the potion! He snuck a glance to the Ravenclaw side—Luna's fellow classmates were looking slightly disappointed and annoyed at Luna, yet Luna herself was unfazed by this treatment.

Neville was really impressed, but being in the damp dungeon had lowered his self-esteem, and he did not wish to whisper a 'good job' across the room.

"Anyway," Snape drawled, "as you dimwitted fools cannot answer my question, I shall answer it for you. The Essence of Insanity is a potion that induces slight-to-intense insanity, depending on how long you store it, the conditions it is in, what you put into it, et cetera," he said drolly. "Today, you will be making a basic potion, which requires only five minutes of aging. The instructions are on the board—" There was the familiar sound of his wand slapping the blackboard—"and today, you have an hour, fifteen minutes. Begin."

Neville sighed and reluctantly pulled his cauldron closer to him. Again, he stole a quick glance at Luna, who looked comfortable at making the potion, but just as he turned to look at her a second time, Snape had taken his place in front of her.

Neville did not know that Seamus and Dean were looking fearfully at him from the back of the dungeons, watching him give the Ravenclaw side furtive looks; the place where Snape was currently striding, his greasy hair swinging stiffly side to side.

"Oh my God, Dean," Seamus said, disgustedly. "He _is_ looking at Snape!"

"No way…" Dean answered, as equally grossed.

"Finnigan! Thomas! Ten points from Gryffindor. Do your own work." Smirking, he strutted away, but not before muttering, "If your pea-brains can digest what I just said, maybe _something_ will actually _happen._"

Thankfully, Seamus and Dean did not hear this snide comment. In fact, they ignored it all together. They were much too disturbed by the conclusion they had so insanely jumped to.

"There! He's done it again!" Seamus yelled out, watching Neville sneak another peak to the Ravenclaw side, with Snape striding among their cauldrons.

Dean covered his eyes.

"Finnigan, Thomas! What did I just tell you?" Snape barked across the dungeon.

Seamus and Dean, not listening to him the first time anyway, couldn't answer him, and cost Gryffindor—

"Thirty more points off of Gryffindor. Any more talking, ten more off, and that will add up to fifty points you docked off Gryffindor."

-x-

Neville wasn't just peeking off to the other side of the dungeon just to see Luna. He, of course, had no idea how to start making the Essence of Insanity, not noticing the board full of detailed instructions, and Hermione wasn't sitting beside him to help this time.

It seemed that every time Neville glanced in Luna's general direction, Snape was always hovering by, somewhere near, and every time he took a peek, he heard strangled, scandalized voices coming from the back of the dungeon.

Noticing a nearby Ravenclaw dump half a pound of Doxy droppings in his cauldron, he grimaced, took a bag of the droppings from the student cupboard, and followed suit. However, he had grabbed the wrong—

"Neville! Not niffler droppings—!" Neville heard Hermione say.

KABOOM!

Neville sat miserably in his chair, staring at his smoking cauldron. Fortunately, he was the only one splattered with the potion; or so he thought. Everyone else around him had already known his history as Clumsiest-Potions-Maker-Ever, and had already taken cover behind their cauldrons.

Except for one person.

"Luna, are you all right?" said a small Ravenclaw girl anxiously, whose name Neville did not know.

Luna simply shrugged and shook her wet hair, siphoning the potion off of her clothes as she replied serenely, "Oh, I'm dandy. In fact, I hear that when you are hit with a magical beverage, such as a potion, the Jabberwocky, a rather dangerous creature, will not dare to move one inch closer to you—"

"Lovegood!" Snape interjected sharply. "Enough of your pointless blabber. Did the potion hit you or not?"

"I believe it has, Professor," she said honestly, wringing her hair.

"Oh dear…" Hermione muttered, her voice muffled by the palm of her hand.

**_finite_**


	4. The gisted dimplefug

_The Gisted Dimplefug_

"Lovegood, Longbottom, to my desk," Snape rapped out, already whipping out a small, suspended cauldron. "The rest of you, keep working." As he lit a fire beneath it, Neville dragged his feet morosely to his desk, slouching, while Luna walked erectly to his desk, still wringing her hair casually, as though this sort of thing happened to her everyday.

Snape surveyed the two of them over his hooked nose, and Neville stared up at him, paralyzed by fear.

-x-

At the back of the room, Seamus and Dean saw Neville supposedly giving Snape his undivided attention, standing rigid and staring up into his beetle-black eyes. "Dean," Seamus whispered hoarsely, nudging his friend in the ribs, "do you see what I see?"

"Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy," Dean sang absent-mindedly, the fumes from his Essence of Insanity evidently working itself into him.

Seamus rolled his eyes. "No, you prat," he said, rewarding Dean with another rib-crushing nudge, "no, look at Neville. Doesn't it seem like he's—?"

Dean shook himself and looked up. "Like he's staring into Snape's eyes?" Dean said, sounding more revolted by the minute.

A few awkward moments passed.

Then, both of them clattered around with their potions, determinedly avoiding the scene at the front of the dungeon.

-x-

Snape was now waving his wand rather ominously around the two, muttering inaudibly, then held the tip of his wand over a vial. Five drops of what looked like blood plopped into the crystal phial, and he poured it into his cauldron. Tapping the cauldron smartly with his wand, its contents seemed to divide.

"What d'you reckon he's doing?" Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione.

Ron merely shrugged, but Hermione was rapt in attention. "He's found out what was in the potion that hit them, and he's making an antidote by finding out what's in each of the components and making an antidote for each one, then finding the sum and making the solution from that. It's in Golpalott's Third Law. Honestly, Harry, don't you read?"

Harry chose to ignore this.

"But it doesn't seem like anything's happened to them," Ron said, studying Neville's rigid form. "All right, well, Neville looks scared to death, poor bloke, but that's only because of Snape."

"Well, Snape _is_ the Potions Master, so he should know something we don't," Hermione snapped. "And you should be watching how to make an antidote, you should, Viktor said at the Yule Ball that making antidotes was the hardest thing he ever learned to do in Potions—"

"Oh, is that what _Vicky_ said?" Ron snarled, crushing the handful of beetles he was holding.

"No, that is what _Viktor_ said," Hermione said, in an annoyed tone of voice. "Would you quit attacking him? All I was saying was—"

"Standing up for him now, are you?"

"No! I mean yes! Ron, all I'm saying is, antidotes will be one of the hardest—if not the hardest thing to do in Potions—"

"According to Vicky, you mean."

"Stop calling him that!"

"Would you two give it a rest?" Harry said, emphasizing his annoyance by stirring his cauldron violently, "Hermione thinks making antidotes are hard and wants to watch Snape do it, and Ron disagrees, the end."

Ron made a scathing sound that sounded vaguely like _Vicky-this, Vicky-that _while Hermione huffed and directed her attention back to the front of the dungeon, where Snape was now pouring the antidote into another crystal phial to examine its contents.

"Hmm…" he said, in what he evidently thought was an impressive way. He was about to yank Longbottom toward him and force-feed it to him when he made a double-take. "What in Merlin's—"

He peered into the phial. Its contents were almost clear, but with a slight tinge of pink to it.

There was only one other antidote that resembled that, and it was the antidote for a love potion.

-x-

Neville ended up exiting the dungeons with Luna after class, finding himself grinning the whole time.

"Neville, why are you smiling so much?" Luna asked serenely, now combing out her hair.

"Erm—"

"Gisted Dimplefug get you?" she said, giving him a sympathetic look. "I felt one brush by me a moment ago. They are the sworn enemy of dementors; they make you extremely happy and help you remember joyful thoughts."

"What? Oh, er, no. Well, I don't think so…" He paused, and swatted the space around him as an afterthought. "Maybe it's just because Snape didn't give us the antidote. Why d'you think he ended up putting it in his desk drawer instead?"

Luna stroked her chin, pondering the thought. "Maybe he did it wrong. If a wrong-footed spirit is in the room, it can cause anyone doing anything important to make blunders. One is living in the Ministry of Magic. That's why Cornelius Fudge always makes mistakes."

"A wrong-footed spirit?" Neville repeated, a worry line creasing his forehead.

"Yes," Luna said calmly, now tying her hair back in a ponytail (Neville having thoughtfully asked her if she wanted him to carry her books). "A wrong-footed spirit is a ghost that had died because he or she was doing something wrong. If it chooses to leave an imprint of itself on the earth, then it haunts whoever is near it by causing them to make mistakes, just like it did when it died."

"So a wrong-footed spirit is something like Nearly-Headless Nick, then?"

"Almost, only wrong-footed spirits are almost always invisible."

"Ohh…" Neville said, nodding, and continued down the hallway with her, a smile still on his lips.

"HAHAHAHAHA, WELL LOOK WHO WE HAVE HERE!" screamed a delighted voice from the ceiling. Neville instantly ducked.

Luna looked up, as though she were checking the sky for clouds. "Oh, hello, Peeves," she said dreamily.

"IT'S LONG-BUTT AND LOONY, WALKING TOGETHER," Peeves cackled, dangling from a chandelier. "DOES LONG-BUTT LUUUUURVE LOONY? DOES HE?"

Neville picked himself up off the floor, already blushing scarlet. "Shut up, Peeves," he mumbled, "or I'll call the Bloody Baron."

Peeves pretended to cover his mouth with mock-horror, then cackled again. "He's off on the North Tower, groaning and clanking like he usually does," he squealed, beginning to swing back and forth on a chandelier branch. "And that's on the _other_ side of the castle."

With that, he zoomed off down the crowding hallway, yelling, "LONG-BUTT LURVES LOONY! LONG-BUTT LUUUUUUUURVES LOONY!"

Neville's scarlet face turned maroon. "Well that went well," he said awkwardly.

Luna smiled. "You're ashamed of me, aren't you," it was a statement, not a question.

"Definitely not!" Neville said, shocked that she would think such a thing. "Why would I be? You're cool, people are just jealous."

Neville found himself staring into Luna's protuberant eyes. They were hypnotizing.

"Thanks," he heard her say.

Blinking, he looked at her, and noticed that she had actually blushed. Not all out, tomato-red blushed, but her cheeks had pinked slightly.

Neville felt slightly pleased.

Luna smiled down at the floor. "I felt a Gisted Dimplefug," she whispered.

"What did you see?"

Luna looked up at Neville and didn't reply.

**_finite_**


	5. A thirteen inch Potions practical

_A Thirteen-Inch Potions practical_

Severus Snape sat down at his desk and bent over the crystal phial that he believed to be the antidote for a love potion. Even though it was nearly midnight, Snape found himself to be quite interested in the substance contained in front of him—it got the better of his curiosity, there was no denying that. Frowning, he prodded the vial with his wand several times, muttering a few well-chosen phrases, attempting to decant the liquid within and reveal what it was hiding, but there was nothing; it was as it appeared to be—unmistakably and undeniably, an antidote to a love potion.

Stroking his chin, Snape leaned back in his chair, thinking. This would be quite interesting, would it not? Love potions were meant to be consumed, to work internally. Since those two dimwitted fools were splashed with the substance externally, what would the effects be?

-x-

Meanwhile, Neville was lying in his four-poster bed, quite awake, his hands laced underneath his head. Not feeling the slightest twinge of sleep, his mind was racing with thoughts of Luna: her beautiful eyes, her long, blonde hair, her smile—all bursting unbidden into his mind. Merlin, it was a good thing it was so dark, Neville reflected, as he felt his cheeks burning, he'd never blushed so hard. He'd never felt so strongly about someone before. Wanting something to do with his hands and take his mind off Luna, Neville sat up and fluffed his pillow into a more comfortable shape, and fell back into it again. Again, Luna glided hauntingly through his mind. What was wrong with him? He'd only known the third-year Ravenclaw for barely two days. Was it possible to start liking someone that soon? Let alone start _loving_ someone that quickly?

No.

Neville sat bolt-upright in his bed. If anyone found out he liked—_loved_, anyone at all, he'd be embarrassed from here until he _died_. Remembering Seamus and Dean (in fact, hearing their very snores right now), he winced. Friends of his they might be, but they had a tendency to be quite teasing even if they didn't know it.

But again, Luna blotted out all his worried thoughts, all Neville could see was her smile. Her dreamy smile, as though there was not a problem in the world.

-x-

Luna, currently, was sitting up in her bed, undoing her butterbeer-cap necklace and placing it carefully on her bedside table, next to her Wattlegord earrings and Spectrespecs. As she set it down, all of a sudden, Neville's face flashed through her brain. Raising an eyebrow in confusion, she shrugged and pulled out the latest issue of _The Quibbler_, for a bit of late-night reading to keep the Nawrms—nightmare-inducing mosquitoes—out of her brain and away from her bed. Again, as she flipped a page, Neville flashed through her head. That was strange. And considering that she was Luna, anything strange to _her_ was really something. Finally setting her magazine down against her knees, Luna stared up at the ceiling. All she could see was Neville's smile, the way he danced, the way he talked to her—no one else, even the people who were nice to her, seemed to truly believe half of the things she said. But Neville—he was different. He trusted everything she believed in and believed them himself. There really was no one quite like him. Suddenly, Luna started and gingerly placed a hand over her warming cheeks. Was she blushing? Why in the world was she blushing?

Walking over to her trunk, she took out a small mirror and looked at her—yep, sure enough—her reddening face. Why would she possibly blush?

As if in answer to her questions, her mind wandered back to Neville. No… she had only known him a few days… not even a whole week, she'd only known him for about two days.

But did that honestly matter? Neville was one-of-a-kind, genuine, and sweet, Luna knew that. But what did that mean?

And more importantly, what did Neville mean to her?

-x-

Neville still couldn't sleep. _Love or Luna?_ he thought to himself miserably. There was something about her that made him confident, something that had never been evident in him before unless they were in the Herbology greenhouses. Luna did bring out the best in him, Neville decided, and of course, there was something about her too…

Neville, all his life, had worried endlessly about what people thought about him. He had always tried to work hard to impress, or at least, mildly please his family, most of all his Gran and Uncle Algie, who he had briefly surprised when he had shown magical talent when his uncle dropped him out of a high window, untimely ending with him bouncing out to the road, unscathed. Luna, however, couldn't seem to care less about what people thought of her. She was her own person, and very freely so, and her admired that about her. Would he ever be like that someday? Unafraid of his blunders and mistakes, but instead, taking the blows with his head held high?

That being thought, would he be able to admit that his feelings about Luna were more than just a friend—without being afraid of the consequences anybody would bring?

_I have to be unafraid_, Neville thought to himself. _And if that's going to ever happen, I'm going to have to start now…_

Just before sleep claimed Neville, he realized, with a slight jolt, that no matter how long they had known each other, it didn't matter—because he had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with Luna Lovegood.

-x-

Snape jumped out of his seat and gaped at the crystal phial. After rifling through numerous potion books and dusty volumes, he looked from the pile of tottering books to the vial, and back again, so many times that he felt dizzy.

"Not all potions have to be consumed, apparently," he murmured thoughtfully, lifting the vial up to his eyes. Yawning and stretching, he set the vial down on his desk and left his office to depart for his bedchambers, extinguishing the lights as he left. The open book on his desk read, _The Basic Love Potion. Little is it known that the most basic of love potions begin with an explosion of a mis-done potion. However, for this to take effect, it must land on two individuals, and it is not necessary for it to infiltrate the body. We call this a love potion for lack of a word, as it is not quite a love potion—this liquid merely intensifies feelings between the two individuals. If the two already feel an attraction towards one another, no matter the intensity, this liquid will increase the feeling between the individuals. If this potion is consumed in contrast to splashing a person, only one is needed to drink it to fall in love with the creator. If the creator itself drinks the potion, there will be no effect. If only one individual is splashed with the liquid, they will fall in love with the first person they see; but as stated before, if two are hit, the attraction between the two will merely be intensified. Though the potion's effects will eventually fade away, it will most likely leave an attraction between the two involved that will leave a feeling that will never fade. Some side effects might include slight memory problems._

-x-

When the sun rose the next day (or, when he thought it did, for Dean had charmed the window curtains to never let any sunlight in unless tied back), Neville woke up, finding that his friends were still snoring atrociously in their beds. Making his mind up on the spot, knowing that it was now or never, he pulled a quill out from his dresser drawer along with a piece of parchment and began writing. Then, dressing hurriedly, he left and shut the door with a snap.

At the sound of the door clicking sharply closed, Ron shifted in his sleep and murmured what sounded suspiciously like, "Er-my-nee," and continued snoring. Seamus, however, twitched in his sleep and slowly blinked awake. Sitting up groggily, he pulled the hangings of his bed open and ruffled his hair in an attempt to properly wake himself up. Looking to the bed next to him, he noticed the hangings drawing open to reveal a scruffy-looking Dean within.

"Grnnn," were Seamus's first morning words.

"Mghh," was Dean's intelligent reply.

Finally, when the two groggy boys had pulled themselves together, Seamus swung his legs over the edge of his bed and peered into the darkness at the door.

"Who just left?" he asked, looking around the beds.

Dean looked around the dormitory, contemplating the sounds within the drawn curtains. "Well," he said, "Harry's snoring, and Ron's muttering about Hermione, but I don't hear Neville whimpering in his bed… so I have come to the amazingly scientific conclusion that Neville has just left the room."

"Bravo, Dean," Seamus said dryly. "Where d'you think he left?"

Standing up, Seamus made his way to Neville's bed and pulled back the hangings to reveal Neville's quill, still damp from the ink that was now currently spotting his sheets.

"Dean," Seamus said slowly, "what was the homework Snape assigned us yesterday?"

"Thirteen inches on the properties and uses of aconite, plus a list of its additional names and at least five potions aconite is the key ingredient of," Dean yawned. "Why?"

"We weren't given practical homework? Brewing a potion? We were supposed to write an essay? Using a quill?"

Dean nodded blearily. "How else would you write an essay?" he asked impatiently. "And anyway, I just said thirteen inches, didn't I? The only way we can give a practical on that is if we grew our—"

"—how would we use that in Potions?" Seamus snapped.

"Well _actually_," Dean said, "we could—"

"Shut up," Seamus snapped again. "It's six-thirty in the morning, and I am not used to innuendo so early in the day. It makes me queasy. Talk to me about that later today. But anyway," he continued, suddenly looking serious, "I think Neville finished his essay early so that he could…"

"No," Dean breathed, his eyes now wide. "So that he could impress Snape?"

"There's no other explanation for it," Seamus said, his face growing green. "We told him it was wrong, didn't we? He's going to be humiliated in front of the whole school! We have to stop him!" He glanced at the window and then at his own bed. "In a few minutes," he added. Flopping down face-first into his bed, Seamus immediately resumed snoring.

-x-

Well in fact, when Neville left the dormitory, he merely went to sit in the Common Room. The fire was now blazing, and since the room was empty, Neville took the liberty of taking the comfiest armchair closest to the fireplace, and looked over what he had just written.

He was always good with words, when he wasn't being pressured or threatened; this was a fact known to almost nobody, excepting his grandmother and Professor Sprout, who always gave him top-marks in written essay. But since the unfortunate boy nearly always succumbed to fright and withdrawal, the outcome was always insecure answers, methods, words—but this was different. He wasn't scared. He had to do this now, or he felt he would back out forever.

Satisfied with what he wrote, Neville left the Common Room and proceeded to the Owlery as quietly as he could. Even though it was no longer nighttime, and he was perfectly free to be outside in the castle, he felt as though Filch would take any excuse to punish a student and give his hanging chains a good work-out while Dumbledore was still asleep.

With the corridors free of the usual milling students so early in the morning, Neville found that he could reach the Owlery in nearly half the time it would normally take him to go to the Great Hall for breakfast. That, he thought, was an amazing achievement.

Folding up the parchment, and, with his tongue inbetween his teeth, Neville wrote _Luna_ on the letter and approached one of the school owls. Knowing that it could understand him, Neville muttered, "At breakfast, okay?" and awkwardly avoiding what the owl evidently thought was an affectionate nip, he left the Owlery, dually feeling as though a great burden had lifted from his chest, only to be replaced with another.

**_finite_**


	6. No one quite like you

**Author's Note**: This is the last chapter. I hope you enjoyed the story—please review!

_No one quite like you_

Half an hour later, Neville was sitting at the table with Dean and Seamus, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting not too far away. He felt extremely nervous and kept making involuntary movements at breakfast.

Dean and Seamus were eying their friend with great apprehension. Finally, after nearly ten minutes of watching Neville having something close to seizures, Dean decided to speak up.

"Neville, is there anything wrong?"

"Yeah, you've been extremely twitchy all breakfast," Seamus chimed in. "And you're breathing heavily."

Dean nodded gravely. "Any… any problems with the heart?" he asked casually.

At this remark, Neville nearly upset his bowl of porridge and slopped half of his milk down his robes.

"What? Why?" he squawked.

Dean and Seamus shared an uncomfortable look. They _were_ right! Neville was—dare they think it—actually attracted to their horrible, hook-nosed professor. That was nearly too obscene to think about, and just when Dean was on the verge of blurting his and Seamus's theory about Professor Snape, there was a loud squawk, and the post arrived.

With another wail, Neville gave a violent twitch that _did_ upset his bowl of porridge, the contents of which splashed on Dean and Seamus and silenced any further accusations.

Within seconds, Neville picked out the owl he had entrusted his task circling among the other owls, and watched its progression as it made its way towards Luna, who was deeply immersed in _The Quibbler_, not even noticing the corner of her magazine absorbing the milk from her cereal. The owl dropped his letter straight on top of _The Quibbler_, and serenely, Luna picked it up and glanced at the name on the letter, as though doubting it was hers. Then, after nearly a full minute, Luna seemed to comprehend that the letter was to her, and her protuberant eyes widened in what was evidently shock. The small, third-year girl Neville had noticed in Potions class yesterday, who was now sitting across from Luna, noticed her surprise and leaned in curiously.

"What is it, Luna?" Neville saw her mouth form.

-x-

Luna's dreams that night were a muddled flurry that involved new dance shoes and a flock of Gisted Dimplefugs. Right before she woke up, there was a flash of a vision of a specific person's face—and when she woke up, she had no recollection of the dream. Until breakfast, that is.

She was reading _The Quibbler_ as she ate breakfast as usual, the same cereal, the same amount of pumpkin juice, the same amount of eggs—but the one thing that was not the same that morning was the untimely arrival of a letter landing right on the centerfold of her magazine.

Her father never usually sent her post, Luna reflected, and he was her only correspondent; therefore, the letter must not be hers. Calmly, she picked the letter up and looked for the recipient's name, in order to return it to the proper owner. After turning the parchment around several times, she finally realized that the name was probably on the opposite side and turned it around. There, she found the inscription:

_to Luna_

Luna stared at it for nearly a full minute. That was _extremely_ odd. Who would ever send her something? Her dad was usually too busy with printing _Quibblers_, and of course, her mother was already dead… and with a lack of friends outside of Hogwarts, who would have sent this to her? The only plausible explanation was that it had to have been someone from within Hogwarts. But… who?

"What is it, Luna?" her friend Vera Yougherty asked, leaning over the table curiously.

Luna shook her head, indicating that she did not know; vaguely noticing her fingers trembling slightly, she unfolded the parchment and read.

_You taught me how to dance  
And you taught me how to believe  
I've learned many things;  
That I should trust and not deceive—  
I know I haven't known you long.  
At first I didn't know what to do  
But right now I know—I _believe_…  
That I think I'm starting to love you._

Vera, who had read the poem backwards from the table, nearly toppled off the bench in excitement.

"That sounds almost like it's a love letter or something," she breathed from the floor.

"There's more," Luna murmured. And indeed there was, written in extremely cramped print near the bottom.

_Luna, I've never met anyone who was ever like you before. And it's weird; I haven't felt this way before either. We have a class together in a few minutes, right after breakfast. And I need to tell you something._

Luna set her chin into her hands, thinking. What was her first-period class? Ever since that potion had hit her, she felt as though she could never remember much of—of anything, to tell you the truth. Then, her dream came back to her with the force of a stampeding troll, along with the remembrance of her first-period class:

Potions.

-x-

"Neville!"

Dean's sharp voice interrupted Neville's reverie, causing him to stop staring at Luna, who was gazing at the letter in her hands, and to revert his attention back to his two friends, who were currently looking at him worriedly.

"Is there something you want to tell Dean and me?" Seamus put in, not sounding rather unlike parents interrogating their children.

Neville sighed. They were going to find it out sooner or later, weren't they? So he decided to tell them part of the truth, if not reluctantly.

"Well," Neville said hesitantly, looking at the ceiling (which was currently partly cloudy), "there… there is," he admitted.

Looking nauseous, Dean forced himself to not look at Seamus out of respect for his awkward friend. "And what would that be?" he asked in a controlled voice.

"Something's gonna happen in Potions class," he mumbled. And with that being said, he stood up abruptly, unwilling to stay any longer, and went up to the Dormitory to get his books.

This time, Dean and Seamus couldn't resist sharing horrified looks.

"He's going to confess his love to Snape!" Seamus spat out, pressing his hands to the sides of his face. "We have to stop him! Before he dies of embarrassment or something!"

There was a pause.

"After we finish breakfast, of course," Seamus added, continuing to shovel oatmeal into his mouth. Dean nodded his approval and began to quaff down pumpkin juice.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione gave Dean and Seamus brief, strange looks, and returned back to their breakfast.

-x-

When Neville arrived at the dungeons, he looked around and noticed that he was the first one there—something that he'd never done before, that was to be sure. At Herbology, maybe, but never Potions. Standing outside the door, he began to fidget. What the heck was he doing? What was he playing at, getting himself into this? This was very unlike Neville, and that was very sure as well. A minute passed, and more of his classmates began milling around the corridor. And sure enough, when Seamus and Dean rounded the corner, they saw Neville standing closest to the dungeon door, looking extremely nervous, as though he was just about ready to drop down and die.

"Seamus, why is he standing at the front of the line? He's never early for potions. _Never_," Dean emphasized.

"I don't know, but it must have something to do with what's happening," Seamus muttered nervously. Further plotting was forestalled as the door to the dungeons swung open, Snape's voice floating through it.

"Class is about to begin. Enter _silently_."

Neville literally leaped inside the classroom, as an effect of his nervousness. Dean and Seamus witnessed this event with growing discomfort.

Once most of the class had settled, Neville looked around the dungeon, searching for Luna—but she wasn't inside yet. Why would that be? She was at breakfast… could she have possibly eaten a funny whelk and have been forced to go to the Hospital Wing?

Luna was about to be late for class. Sure enough, she was walking down the corridors leading to the Potions dungeons much slower than usual, re-reading the letter as she ambled down her way.

She had taught a lot of people how to dance. Sure enough, they seemed uncomfortable with it, but a lot of people were taught the many progressions of the Porgapheys' Mating Dance or the Drough Quadrille—so who could this possibly be?

Finally reaching the dungeon, she put away the letter and took a deep, apprehensive breath. She pushed open the dungeon doors and stepped inside just as the late bell rang.

"Nearly late, Lovegood," Snape snapped. "Take your seat. Now, I want all of your essays—"

"Wait," Neville said quietly, standing up.

Snape stared at Neville as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing. Overcoming the shock, Snape's expression turned stony once more.

"Longbottom, sit down."

Instead of following Snape's orders, Neville stepped a full pace from his cauldron into the aisle beside it. There was a slight buzz coming from the whole of the classroom—it was widely known that Neville was very afraid of Snape.

In the back of the classroom, Dean and Seamus were grimacing. "He's going to do it," Seamus hissed.

"I n-n-need to say s-something," Neville stammered.

"On the count of three," Dean whispered.

Seamus nodded. "One…"

Snape looked extremely livid. "Ten points from Gryffindor! Sit down this instant, Longbottom!"

"Two…"

"N-not yet."

Snape's eyebrows reached for the ceiling. "Ten more points from—"

"THREE!"

Dean and Seamus both tackled Neville to the ground, clamping his mouth shut. Neville writhed violently. After a few minutes (Snape too stunned to reduce points), Neville shook of Seamus's hand that was around his mouth.

"Get _off_!"

"Don't do it!" Dean roared, seizing Neville by the shoulders of his robes and shaking him violently. "Don't confess your love to Snape! He isn't your type! He is the wrong gender and age for you! YOU'LL HAVE TIME TO LOVE SOMEONE ELSE!"

"Yes! What he said!" Seamus wailed desperately. "Give him up! Please! This is disgusting all of us!"

As if hoping the rest of the people in the dungeon would support him, Seamus gestured around to his classmates and Snape, all of whom stared blankly at the three struggling boys. Crickets could be heard (which was a strange thing, as all the dried crickets in Snape's store were all dead and were physically unable to do such a thing).

"What are you talking about?" Neville choked out, attempting to shake Dean and Seamus off of him.

"YOU FANCY SNAPE!" Seamus yelled maniacally.

The only sound that followed was a retching noise that came from Snape's desk.

"No I don't!" Neville blustered, disgusted to the extreme at such a thought. "I wasn't going to confess my love to him at all! Not… not to him, at least."

There was an audible sigh and Snape's head appeared from behind his desk. "Oh," he said. "Well in that case, fifty points from—"

"Who were you going to confess your love to, then?" Seamus demanded, seizing Neville by the neck of his robes and shaking him there as well.

"What's with all the shaking?" Neville asked, flapping his hands femininely in Seamus's face. "Get off me!"

Dean and Seamus obliged, then helped Neville to his feet.

"Sorry," they said simultaneously. There was more silence.

Neville stared at Dean and Seamus in turn and then made a slight grimace. Pushing past them, he made his way to Luna, who was still standing beside the dungeon door. Vera Yougherty made a small sound that must have indicated disappointment, which no one except herself heard.

At first, Luna stared at Neville blankly, as did the whole classroom—the people in it, not the classroom itself, that would be ridiculous—even Snape did, slightly fascinated, remembering what he had read the night before. Finally, Luna broke the silence, holding up the letter.

"You wrote this?" she asked disbelievingly.

Neville hesitated for a heartbeat of a second, and then nodded.

"I'm really sorry," he mumbled. "But I just know that whenever I'm around you, I feel more confident about myself. I feel better. And it's… it's because of you, I reckon."

Luna's cheeks pinked. "What do you mean?"

"It looks like we were wrong," Dean whispered to Seamus as everyone else looked on.

"We stand corrected," Seamus agreed, looking rather teary.

"I mean that you make me feel different, happier," Neville said, his voice ebbing to a whisper. "There's no one quite like you."

Luna's eyes glinted; tears were specking the corners of her eyes. "I've never met anyone quite like you either," were the last things she said before Neville did something that was both very brave and stupid, something he thought he'd never do—he kissed her, right in front of the whole class and Professor Snape, who seemed to snap out of something.

"Longbottom! Lovegood! Detention to both of you," he snarled. "All of you, take your seats."

There was an outcry from both the Gryffindor and Ravenclaws, both Houses finding the scene surprisingly cute. Amidst the roar, Snape could pick out yells of "Why? Why?"

Snape sneered. "Longbottom and Lovegood are out of line; class has begun and they refuse to pay attention." Turning on his heel, his robes billowing out behind him, he strode to the chalkboard and took out his wand. "That and, I'm allowed to be an evil Slytherin bastard."

As Neville and Luna returned to their seats, Snape had his back turned, referring to a book as he checked against the blackboard. Luna caught Neville's eye and smiled; then she looked around her, stroking the air around her as though feeling for something… both of them felt so good that she could've sworn she could feel a Gisted Dimplefug fly into her.

For all he was worth, Neville felt as though he'd been stampeded by a herd of them himself.

Grinning to himself, Neville pulled his cauldron closer to him, not feeling even an inkling of fear or apprehension at the difficulty of the lesson that lay ahead of him. There really was no one quite like her, he thought. No one quite like her at all.

_**finite incantatem.**  
_


End file.
